MOOCs lead Duke to reinvent on-campus courses

By Jake New

August 27th, 2013

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) may not yet be driving down tuition, but they’re starting to kill the traditional lecture class, reports InformationWeek. At Duke University, professors who teach MOOCs tend to go back and do a radical revision of their on-campus classes. “That’s true for at least half the faculty who developed MOOC classes,” said Lynne M. O’Brien, Duke’s associate vice provost for digital and online education initiatives. She said this was no surprise: MOOCs free professors from constraints required by for-credit classes, like length and format. “People are free to innovate in ways you can’t do with a typical course,” she said.

Jake New

Jake New studied journalism at Indiana University, where he was editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. At the IDS, Jake covered the IU administration, minority student issues, and state education policy.
After a brief stint at the Bloomington Herald-Times covering IU, crime, and local politics, Jake interned at the Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington D.C, writing about online learning, open-access policies, academic publishing, and ed-tech startups.
Jake joined eCampus News as an assistant editor in May 2013, where he continues to cover technology and higher education. His days often begin with a cup of coffee and the sinking feeling that another MOOC story is just around the corner.
Follow Jake via Twitter: @eSN_Jake